THE differences between Western and Eastern, particularly Confucian and Buddhist-based, cultures and attitudes towards crisis, hardship and austerity are great, like day and night.

As debtmocratic Greece has shown in the current debt crisis, the ordinary Greeks have resorted to violent demonstrations, strikes and public anger over the various austerity measures being tied to the proposed eurozone and International Monetary Fund rescue package.

While the public outburst over the corrupted Greek government is somewhat justified, their reaction is grossly different from the Confucius and Buddhist-influenced Asians.

The ordinary Greeks should take a very hard look at themselves, and ask honestly whether they should bear a big part of the blame for the serious debt crisis that Greece is in now instead of only violently pointing their fingers at the government for all the blame.

The way the Confucius and Buddhist-influenced Asians would have reacted in such situations would have been totally different. They would have taken the blame mostly on themselves.

We all know that the Japanese economy has not been performing well for the last 20-odd years but do we know the social costs of this slump?

The number of Japanese who committed suicide in Japan in 2009 stayed above 30,000 for the 12th straight year, with suicides due to hardships of life and job losses rising sharply, states a Japanese police survey.

More significantly, suicides traced to job losses surged 65.3% to 1,071 while those due to hardships in life jumped 34.3% to 1,731.

More worrying, depression continued to top the list of reasons for the suicides.

Perhaps even more worryingly, the number of suicides per 100,000 people came to 24.1 among those in their twenties, an all-time high for that age category, and 26.2 among those in their thirties, a record for the third year in a row.

Not surprisingly, the number of suicides jumped in October 2008 – a month after Lehman Brothers collapsed.

This taking-all-the-blame on oneself instead of looking for easy scapegoats can also be seen at another level.

In 2009, monthly suicides increased year-on-year from January to August.

They were especially rampant from March to May as fiscal year-end fund demands picked up during the period.

From 1990 onwards, even as the ordinary Japanese increasingly suffered under the grossly inept Liberal Democratic Party, one has not seen the violent demonstrations, strikes and public anger that is being seen in Greece, at present.

Instead they take their own lives, probably in shame.

As the ordinary Japanese suffers in silence, the economy stumbles from one recession to another. The cycle repeats.

Now, with the global economic recovery in full swing, the ordinary Japanese gets another cyclical and temporary respite from the rising economic hardship.

OMAHA, Nebraska: Billionaire Warren Buffett always tries to make sure that anyone who’s willing to make a seven-figure donation just to have lunch with the investor gets their money’s worth, so the meals often last more than three hours.

So far, so good.

“Nobody’s asked for their money back,” Buffett said.

The Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO said he hopes the annual lunch auction will again draw multimillion-dollar bids to benefit the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco.

But that’s hard to predict, especially with more international interest – three of the past four winners came from outside the U.S.

“Some of these people I’d never heard of before they made the bid,” Buffett said.

This year’s auction was to start Sunday evening with a US$25,000 minimum bid on eBay, but the final price of the meal won’t be set until the auction closes Friday at 9:30 p.m. CDT (0230 GMT Saturday).

The date of the lunch will be determined later, once the winner is known and agrees with Buffett on a time.

Last year, Canadian investment firm Salida Capital paid $1.68 million to dine with Buffett.

And that price represented a discount over the record $2.11 million a Chinese investment fund manager paid in 2008, which was the most expensive charity item eBay had ever sold.

Buffett’s investment success and folksy wisdom have earned him a devoted following. Last month, 37,000 people attended Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha.

But apart from his popularity, Buffett thinks the work of Glide has also moved bidders to pay astronomical prices for the lunch in previous years.

“They may like the lunch, but they care about where the money’s going, too,” Buffett said.

“I would, too, if I were in their position.”

Buffett knows a bit about philanthropy.

He is giving away the bulk of his fortune over time.

The plan he launched in 2006 will eventually split most of his shares of Berkshire stock between five charitable foundations, with the largest chunk going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

He has supported Glide ever since his late first wife, Susan, introduced him to Glide’s founder, the Rev. Cecil Williams.

Buffett said the organization and Williams, who has led the nonprofit for more than 45 years, do a remarkable job of helping people recover after they hit rock bottom.

“There’s all kinds of people that need that kind of help, and I don’t think anybody is better at providing it than Glide,” he said.

Several of the past auction winners have visited Glide and made additional donations on top of their bids.

Williams said the needs he sees in San Francisco have only grown during the economic turmoil of the last couple of years, while the donations that supply most of Glide’s $17 million budget have fallen.

That makes this lunch auction crucial, he said.

“We really don’t want to cut back,” Williams said.

“I don’t want to have to stand out in the lines and tell folks we can’t take you.”

The owners of the Smith and Wollensky restaurant in New York contributed $10,000 to Glide and will again host the lunch.

The auction winner gets to bring up to seven friends to the lunch with the “Oracle of Omaha.”

Buffett said he enjoys the meals and has even made a few friends through past ones.

“I’ve met interesting people. We had a good time. And I’ve learned some things I didn’t know before,” he said. – AP